EDITORIAL
Maria Ajello’s Travails Reveal
Flaws In Back-Tax Collection
Editor’s note: At readers’ requests that this editorial reach the widest local readership possible, it is being reprinted from the Hometown Oneonta & Freeman’s Journal editions of Sept. 15-16.
It’s time to bring Maria Ajello’s ordeal to an end, to end an unpleasantness – an injustice, even – that has been simmering for 24 months now, as she reminded the Otsego County Board of Representatives at its September meeting on the 7th.
On Aug. 20, 2014, the date of the Otsego County treasurer’s annual auction of tax-delinquent properties at the Holiday Inn on Oneonta’s Southside, Mrs. Ajello arrived with payment of the $6,700 owed, plus an additional $2,299 in interest charges.
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She was ready to pay the $8,999 total she owed on a house and 74 acres at 104 Filburn Road, hamlet of Monticello, Town of Richfield.
Due to a policy still in place, the payment was denied, and the house and land auctioned off for $75,000, plus the auctioneer’s 10 percent fee, a total $82,500. So the County of Otsego garnered a profit of $65,001 – 650 percent – on the $8,999 total back taxes and penalties.
The new owner, who bought the property for $75,000, then put the house and one acre on the market for $169,000, (and keeps 73 acres). So Mrs. Ajello, in effect, lost more than $169,000 in assets because her $8,999 check wasn’t accepted, money that – she is in her early 60s – she likely cannot recoup.
Mrs. Ajello should have paid her taxes on time. But a 650-percent profit for the county, leaving the homeowner with nothing? Unseemingly is the word that comes to mind.
Since Aug. 20, 2014, Mrs. Ajello has appeared at every monthly meeting of the county Board of Representatives, pleading, often tearfully, for the representatives to return her property. “Do you know what it’s like to shame myself, every month?” she asked in an interview the other day, and again tears flowed.
She acknowledges she fell behind on taxes and is willing to cover what she owed, plus penalties. She only challenges the severity of her punishment.
If the monthly appearances have been excruciating for Mrs. Ajello, so have they been for the county reps – you can tell by the expression on many of their faces. It has been excruciating for the audience, citizens of Otsego County; their representatives’ actions reflect on them. You can see it on their faces.
Look at the faces of the out-of-county visitors watching the monthly ordeal – from Solar City, from the Laberge Group, from the Onondaga County purchasing director, and many more. Are they thinking: What kind of place is Otsego County?
How did Mrs. Ajello get so far behind?
The slippages began when her husband, Ken, died in 2009 at age 59; a Vietnam veteran, his early passing may have been the result of Agent Orange exposure. As the widow explains it, she was immobilized, stopped opening her mail or tending her affairs, and the tax bills – among others – mounted up.
Anyone who has suffered personal tragedy without a support system can understand what happened. Anyone who hasn’t may be unable to. But it’s a fairly common reality.
Bob Force, the other taxpayer who has challenged the taking (of property in Gilbertsville) was undergoing a knee replacement while his wife was fighting multiple sclerosis when he got in arrears. Life happens, and it can be challenging.
County Rep. Gary Koutnik, D-Oneonta, this year knocked on the door of every one of his constituents on the delinquent list, and helped a widow who otherwise would have found herself in Mrs. Ajello’s predicament.
There are other issues Ajello and Ahrens have raised: Should county employees be allowed to bid on delinquent properties? Should the transfer of property have been voted on by the full board, as always happened in the past, instead of transferred by quick-claim deed?
Those issues can be argued separately. The unseemly profiteering alone is sufficient for the county Board to revisit the Ajello case.
Let it be emphasized: It hasn’t been shown that anyone at the county did anything wrong.
County Treasurer Dan Crowell set a deadline in advance so that buyers wouldn’t be disappointed by properties being pulled off the list at the last minute. Over time, he argued, disappointed buyers mean less participation and less revenue. He’s got a point.
As County Attorney Ellen Coccoma affirmed from the dais at the meeting on the 7th, the county is legally empowered to do everything it did. No doubt she’s right.
And, yes, there should be penalties for tax delinquency, and there are. But to throw people who want to pay their taxes out of their homes and erase their net worth over a relative pittance – $8,999 is one/10,000th of the county’s $90 million budget – is unworthy of the power and majesty of the County of Otsego. Citizens of good will don’t support that.
Let’s close the door on it.
One, the county board should consider forming a committee to explore the whole question of tax delinquencies – refusing to accept certified checks on the day of sale, apparently, is by no means the rule among the state’s 67 counties. Explore best practices and report back with proposed reforms.
Two, the county board should open conversations to reach common ground with Mrs. Ajello. Everything should be on the table. Short of returning her property – in the past, properties have been returned five years after a sale – would it make sense to reimburse her the amount the county received ($75,000) minus delinquent taxes and penalties ($8,999)?
To ruin people over a few thousand dollars in back taxes they are willing to pay? That’s unnecessarily punitive. Maria Ajello’s wrenching travail has gone on long enough. The county board should end it.
And now there has been an arrest of an employee that took late payments as has Treasurer Crowell. This is discrimination and the sale of the Ajello home to a County Management employee is illegal according to State Municipal law.
County government needs to treat everyone equally. Insider deals and sales undermines the Public Trust. Developers and politicians in State government are being arrested and held responsible.
Dear Kathy Clark, Board Chairman and Attorney Coccoma:
Nullify the contract and return the Ajello home and land.
Don’t bully a widow and leave her homeless too.
Rules are set for everybody you have 3 years to get your taxes paid before the cut off date.
The personThat did not pay her taxes should be treated the same as every one else weather her husband was in the military or amy person , farmer, business person, So move on. you did not pay your taxes if the county changes the policy they would have a lot of people not paying their taxes and wait till the last day of the sale that is not how it had been. I lived here all my life and this is the first time that I know this happened
It’s not three years, it’s four of property and up to five of school before a property is taken with more notifications then you can imagine sent to the owners’ prior to the deadline (each year) – your lien holder wouldn’t give back your car or your mortgagee your home if you simply ignored the mail. Yes, she went through tragedy but she was living with her boyfriend during these years and paid the taxes after her husband’s death for a couple years. This whole situation got out of hand and blamed on the Treasurer’s office when yes it’s sad but it’s all on the home owner and them taking responsibility for their own bills and responsibilities. In regards to Otsego County Employees being able to bid/buy a property, no one handling any part of the auction can bid but those who have no hand in the auction are permitted as they are the public. I feel for her and it’s a tragedy but she is fully responsible and this cannot be placed on Dan Crowell any longer – enough is enough.
I strongly support the Freemans’ Journal editorial urging the County Legislature to take action to correct the loss of life savings faced by Maria Ajiello. It is clear that no one did anything legally wrong, yet through a serious of illness, loss, and a change in procedures which was not well understood, a wrong occurred that enriched our County at the expense of one of its constituents. It is important to note that Mrs. Aijello was ready to pay her full debt, with interest and penalties, on the date of foreclosure. She was rebuffed as being too late due to a change in procedure. Clearly she made a mistake, but it does not merit the punishment imposed.
The current Board of Representatives should take action to correct the windfall to the County at the expense of the widow of a veteran, who stood ready to pay her taxes and penalties, before foreclosure. If I am elected to the County Board of Legislature for District 9, where Mrs. Aijello’s home once was, I will endeavor to work with the County Board to correct this injustice. I congratulate Gary Koutnick for visiting all of the residents of his District facing foreclosure. Had my opponent, Keith McCarty, made this effort, Mrs. Aijello’s loss could have been avoided. It is time time reassert our collective humanity and correct this unintended, but very painful result. Even if no one did anything wrong. It is wrong to allow this to continue. Nicole Dillingham (Candidate for County Rep, District 9)